Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre

Flore Garcin-Marrou : « Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre »
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and
theatre
Or, Philosophy and its “other”❧
Flore Garcin-Marrou*
Many critical works have already established links between
Deleuze’s philosophy and art. Art became the “Other” of philosophy,
using affects and percepts to understand intellectual questions.
Gilles Deleuze’s thoughts about painting, cinema, literature and
music had been moving towards the creation of new concepts, as
well as investigations of other regions beyond the philosophic field
and towards the construction of a logic of multiplicities. But, in these
critical works, theatre was always curiously absent. Gilles Deleuze
had already explained in L’Abécédaire with force and clarity his
disinterest in theatre: “Theatre is too long, and too disciplined,” it is
“an art that remains entrenched in the present and in daily issues,
while never advancing beyond dimensions of the present.” While
showing admiration for the directors Bob Wilson and Carmelo Bene,
he nonetheless expressed regrets unambiguously: “To stay four
hours sitting in an unconfortable armchair, I cannot do this anymore.
That alone destroys theatre for me.” Nevertheless, when we read
Deleuze, theatre is everywhere present. Let us present a few
examples.
❧
This paper was read on July 13, 2010, in Amsterdam, during the Third
International Studies Conference. A few elements here presented come from
the author’s Ph.D thesis, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari : between theatre and
philosophy, supervised by Denis Guénoun.
* Flore Garcin-Marrou ([email protected]) is a Ph.D student at the
University Paris IV-Sorbonne. She teaches Theatre studies at the Université
Toulouse Le Mirail (France). She will stage an extract of Refrains by Félix
Guattari with the Sound poet, Damien Schultz on November 8, 2011, during
a collective reading of Chaosmosis organized in Paris by Pascale Criton and
Jean-Claude Polack.
TRAHIR
Deuxième année, août 2011
Difference and repetition is a criticism of representation. And yet,
Deleuze speaks of costumes, of masks, of doubles and drama. He
speaks as well of “methods of dramatization”1 familiar to a public of
contemporary theatre, of the theatre of cruelty, of Artaud’s theatre
and its double, of philosophic theatre, of the theatre of the future, of
the theatre of worship2 (term borrowed from Kierkegaard). And
finally, he sets in opposition the “theatre of representation” and “the
theatre of repetition”: the theatre of repetition can produce the
experience of pure forces, of dynamic lines in space which act
without the intermediacy of the mind. The Logic of sense is a vision of
Antonin Artaud.
Anti-Oedipus repeats that the unconscious does not constitute a
theatre, like antique tragedy, but rather a factory, a production
machine, and Deleuze forcefully denounces any form of mimesis, or
imitation.
A chapter of What is philosophy? 3 is dedicated to “conceptual
personae.” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari argue that conceptual
personae are true agents of enunciation that make philosophy
tangible, for example Socrates in Plato, or Zarathustra in Nietzsche.
Deleuze draws when necessary upon the figures of Oedipus, Ajax
(both characters from tragedies by Sophocles), Don Juan,
Empedocles, the Amazonian queen Penthesilea...
The second part of the book Superpositions (1979), written with
Carmelo Bene consists of Deleuze’s “One Manifesto Less,”4 an essay
on Bene and theatre and their relation with minor literature. The
iconic figure of Richard III is presented as a “man of war”, engaged in
1
Gilles Deleuze, “The Method of Dramatization,” Desert Islands and other
texts, 1953-1974, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Mike Taormina, Semiotext(e),
2004, pp. 94 sqq.
2 “Le théâtre de la foi,” in Søren Kierkegaard, La Répétition, 1843.
3 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy?, trans. Graham
Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson, London/New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994, pp. 61-83.
4 The translation by Alan Orenstein can be found in The Deleuze Reader, ed.
Constantin V. Boundas, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993,
pp. 204-222.
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Flore Garcin-Marrou : « Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre »
TRAHIR
“becoming woman.” Bene is described as an “actor machine.” Finally,
Deleuze asks the question “What is minor theatre?”
Ten years later, in 1992, Deleuze analysed four plays for television
written by Samuel Beckett, in an essay entitled The Exhausted, as an
afterword to the French translations of Quad, But the clouds..., Nacht
und Traume, and Ghost Trio. In this essay, he continued to define the
concept of “minor theatre.”
Finally, when Deleuze presented and “performed” his courses at the
Université de Vincennes, he was able to demonstrate that the
philosopher himself is in fact the dominant character in the
philosophical drama in which philosophical thinking is in the
process of development. He might begin his seminar with the ritual
question: “Would you mind closing the door?”. And then, in a voice
more patient and in a deeper tone, Deleuze might then articulate the
concepts at stake in the drama : “And then, what does that mean?”,
might become the question insistently asked. His speech becomes
more increasingly rapid, until he was able to articulate the concept
in a voice now more serious and even spectral. Claude Jaeglé, in his
fine book, An oratory portrait of Gilles Deleuze with yellow eyes,
speaks of a “diction of concepts.”5
So, whereas Deleuze does attempt to dissuade his reader from
considering theatre as an art which really had importance for him, it
is clear that he continues to place references to theatre everywhere.
Theatre enables Deleuze to emerge from philosophy6, while at the
same time drawing new perspectives from philosophy, even to the
point of underlining the theatricality of philosophy. He said in
Negotiations: “From Empedocles on, there’s a whole dramaturgy of
thought.”7 Concepts become characters and tell stories.
So, it seems that theatre is one of the “Other” of the Deleuzian works
neglected by critics. Theatre has a minor status, a less distinguished
5
Claude Jaeglé, Portrait oratoire de Gilles Deleuze aux yeux jaunes, Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 2005.
6 Gilles Deleuze, L’Abécédaire, Lettre C: “Sortir de la philosophie,” DVD,
Éditions Montparnasse, 2004.
7 Gilles
Deleuze, Negotiations, 1972-1990, trans. Martin Joughin,
London/New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 148.
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status in comparison to the place given in his criticism to cinema,
literature, and music, and it is not without surprise that we can
actually remark that there has been no single publication specifically
devoted to Deleuze and theatre yet.
Reasons therefore to honor the recently published work in English,
Deleuze and performance, edited by Laura Cull and published by the
Edinburgh University Press8, the first collection of articles on the
subject. We can also note a few several chapters of Ronald Bogue’s
books, for example in Deleuze on Literature9.
But the presence of theatre is inseparable from the second “Other”:
Félix Guattari. Friend and alter ego, Félix Guattari permitted a
dialogical configuration, which is an original variation of the
philosophic dialogue in Plato. Both voices are joined or mixed in an
“organization of collective enunciation.” [agencement collectif
d’énonciation] Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari were two separate
identities, and began together a new shaping, a new collective
subjectivity. A “line of flight” [ligne de fuite] is created, a virtuality
embodied in the meeting of Deleuzian thought and theatrical
practices.
In the course of my research for the completion of my thesis, I came
by chance upon six plays written by Félix Guattari between 1980 and
1990. These are not philosophical dramas, nor are they what is often
referred to as “theatre with a thesis” such as in the theatre of JeanPaul Sartre. They are rather plays inspired by Ubu by Alfred Jarry,
inspired in turn by the theatrical experiments of dadaists and
surrealists. Qualified as “chaosmic sketches,” rapidly written and in a
great distance from philosophic seriousness, the plays are composed
in the tones and style of daily life, and ponctuated by language with
childish wit. Guattari satirizes and mocks the patrons and icons of
psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud, Mélanie Klein, Carl Gustav Jung)
and of philosophy (Socrates, Lucretius), and, of course, himself. The
goal of this kind of theatre is simply laughter. I give here a few
examples.
8 Deleuze and performance, edited by Laura Cull and Ian Buchanan, “Deleuze
Connections,” Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
9 Ronald Bogue, Deleuze on literature, New York: Routledge, 2003.
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Flore Garcin-Marrou : « Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre »
TRAHIR
First example: Le Maître de Lune
Second example: Socrate
Here a short passage drawn from The Moon Master, written in 1985.
Félix Guattari speaks here of the concept of “individuation,” reduced
to an object of ridicule by the vulgarity of the term... (It should be
noted that the characters are not given names but are designated by
letters and numbers.)
The second play is entitled Socrates. In Aristophanes, The Clouds,
Socrates had already been portrayed as a ridiculous character, a
Socrates who is a bum, sleeping on a pallet full of fleas trying to see
the world of Ideas from close up by ascending in a basket suspended
from a tree bringing him up to within a few meters of the sky where
Ideas were supposed to be located. Félix Guattari, in his own
manner, places the Father of all philosophers upon the stage in a
most unflattering light. The plot of the play can be summarized as
follows: the character called Georges claims to be Socrates. Carmen,
his wife, tries to calm him down. Georges seems to be suffering from
a spasm of delirium, a spell of mystical hallucination, during which
he takes himself for the Greek philosopher. And at the end of the
play, Georges – or Socrates – utters a cry that resembles an exquisite
surrealist corpse:
Three secretaries or servants in mini-jupes busy themselves
with “the object little a” (a reference to the concept from the
psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, which stands for the
unattainable object of desire). They put him on a little stool,
massage him, open his shirt, wrap him in warm towels and
tickle him.
B 1 affectionately: Say I swear! Go on, say it, I swear it, bunny!
[a]: Bunny?
B 2: And now, now that we’ve started, tell us everything. We’ve
come to listen to you. [...]
B 1 sneezing – Nietzsche!
B 2: God bless you!
B 1: And so, we might have hoped for a little bit of
individuation, [but] we didn’t dare say so... That’s what
happened, right? You big jerk!
[a] ashamed, he nods his head.10
10
Original French text:
Trois secrétaires-soubrettes en mini-jupes s’affairent autour de (a).
Elles l’installent sur un tabouret, le massent, ouvrent sa chemise,
l’enveloppent de serviettes chaudes et le chatouillent.
B 1, affectueux – Dites je le jure ! Allez, dites-le donc, je le jure, allez
mon gros lapin !
– Mon gros lapin ?
B 2 – Et puis, par la même occasion, dites-nous tout. On est là pour
vous entendre. [...]
B 1, éternuant – Nietzsche !
B 2 – À la tienne !
B 1 – Alors, comme ça, on aurait voulu un petit peu d’individuation,
mais on n’osait pas le dire ! C’est bien ça, hein, mon gros bêta ?
(a), honteux, hoche la tête.
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After Star Wars, the Logos bomb! This is where one hundred
years of Lacanism has brought us. But, as far as I know, haven’t
the Saussurian ‘“Conventions” of Geneva condemned the use of
signifying gas?11
Socrates is now nothing more than a schizophrenic, the herald of the
terrorism of the Logos (or rationality in the extreme), detesting
Lacanism and evoking the poisonous thought of Ferdinand de
Saussure and connecting linguistics to the Geneva Conventions... (I
remind you here that Jacques Lacan considers the unconscious to be
structured as a language.) The play is largely incomprehensible,
moving playfully and incessantly between intertextualities and
associations of ideas of this kind.
11 Original
French text:
Après la guerre des étoiles la bombe à logos ! Voilà où nous auront
conduits cent années de lacanisme. Mais que je sache, les conventions saussuriennes de Genève n’ont-elles pas proscrit l’usage des
gaz signifiants ?
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Flore Garcin-Marrou : « Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre »
TRAHIR
I B: You think there is a way, really? Or an anti-way? A trick, or
an anti-trick?
II B: Maybe a trick-“truc”?
I B: You mean a “binary signifying chain”?
III B: No dirty talk, there!
I B: Anyway, he always understood everything before
everyone else.
III B: Because he didn’t want to know anything...
II A: But sex, buddy, sex!
I A: Who? What?
II A: Sex, differentiation of the sexes, the moment that
determines what is possible!
III A: You want me to show my ass?
I chorus: Ass! Give us some ass!
III 3 does a strip tease.
I C: That’s not very interesting.14
Third example: Psyche Ville Morte
The third play is entitled Psyche Ghost Town. Three groups of actors
are waiting for something to happen, for a “situation” to be set in
motion, so that a story may begin... The sole setting, in the middle of
the stage, a tree. Beyond the likely references to Beckett’s Waiting
for Godot, the three groups of actors seem to suggest the three
components of the Freudian psyche (the id, the ego, and the superego12). The stage within the theatre is transformed into a “mental”
stage upon which the id, the ego and the super-ego enter into a
“dialogic” exchange. Félix Guattari engages in the playful passage
back and forth between the psychoanalytical stage and the theatrical
stage. At a certain moment of the play, the characters attempt to
intensify their “desire” by improvising a Dionysiac dance. But their
attempts fail and the characters are as far removed from frenzy as
before.
D: That wasn’t going too badly. And then, he had to start all
over again, again and again with that same nasty stuff.
II A: Look at those jerks, they take themselves for the working
class!
I A: We’ve got to come to a decision.
III A: He’s right, we’ve got to do something!
II A: What fun!13
So, what solution can be found to re-awaken their desire? Some of
them suggest strange tricks and others propose “anti-tricks”, and
still others, “binary signifying chains” [signifiant binaire]. Here’s
another piece of the text:
12 Such as Freud describes them in his second topic (id, ego, super-ego)
trying to map the psychic apparatus.
13 Original French text:
D : ca marchait pas mal. Et puis, il a fallu qu’il la ramène, toujours
avec ce même machin scabreux.
IIA : Regardez-les ces cons là, ils se prennent pour des prolos !
I A : Il faut prendre une décision.
IIIA : Il a raison, il faut faire quelque chose !
IIA : Quelle rigolade !
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14
Original French text:
I B - Tu crois qu’il y a un truc ? un anti-truc ?
II B - Peut-être un tric-truc ?
I B - Tu veux dire du signifiant binaire ?
III B - Pas de gros mots, là-bas !
I B - De toute façon, il a toujours tout compris avant les autres.
III B - A force de rien vouloir savoir...
II A - Mais le sexe, mon vieux, le sexe !
I A – Qui ? Quoi ?
II A – Le sexe, la différence des sexes, la coupure pour casser le
possible !
IIIA – Tu veux que je te montre mon cul ?
I le choeur : du cul ! On veut du cul !
Strip tease de III3
IC : C’est pas très intéressant
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Flore Garcin-Marrou : « Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and theatre »
TRAHIR
Fourth example: Visa le noir tua le blanc
Finally, the fourth extract is taken from the play: Aimed at the black
man, killed the white one. The play is an example of internal
duplication of the dramatic situation. Whereas Aristotle, in his
Poetics, defines theatrical drama as a story which develops from
point a to point b, Aimed at the black man, killed the white one bears
on drama and its failure to happen, and it bears on non-drama. I
quote a short extract:
B: Ok, do you agree?
N: Agree on what!
N: What kind of thing?
A: You hear the other guy?
B: Immediately! But finally, when I say let’s agree, it’s only to
signify an hypothesis. I do not claim at all that something has
indeed really happened.
N: That’s clear, what did you mean in the final analysis? [...]
That fascinates me, the idea of an event which wouldn’t change
anything at all.
A: Or not very much.
H: That changes eveything, that business. Because between
nothing at all and not very much, that makes a helluva
difference!
G: That guy is going to start his routine of a post-modern
explanation of the clinamen which could break down the
whole system.15
⁂
There would be much more to say about two other plays: The Affair
of the Lancel Handbag (L’Affaire du sac de chez Lancel) and Night
time, the End of Possibilities (La Nuit, la fin des moyens). Let us just
mention that The Affair of the Lancel Handbag is the first play
written by Félix Guattari in 1979, the only political play in the
tradition of the October group of Jacques Prévert. Night time, the End
of Possibilities, is his last play, which was read at the Avignon Festival
in 1990. That is a play about his childhood memories: numerous
monologues drawn from his unpublished autobiography, 33.333,
revised and published with the title: Ritournelles (Refrains).
To conclude, I hope that I have stirred your curiosity by my
discussion of these texts still unpublished in France, but which I
hope to see them published in the near future in France, and perhaps
some day in English. With regard to Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari’s
theatre is one of those “Others” which deserves to be studied more
closely.
15 Original
French text:
B : Bon, admettons !
N : Admettons quoi !
B : J’en sais rien, admettons qu’il se soit passé quelque chose !
N : Quel genre ?
A : Tu l’entends, l’autre ?
B : Tout de suite ! Mais enfin, quand je dis admettons, c’est seulement
pour signifier une hypothèse. Je ne prétends aucunement qu’il se soit
effectivement passé quelque chose.
N : C’est plus clair, qu’est-ce que tu as voulu dire au bout du compte ?
[...] Ça m’intrigue, cette idée d’un événement qui ne changerait rien.
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A... : Ou pas grand chose.
H... : C’est que ça change tout cette affaire là. Parce qu’entre rien du
tout et pas grand chose, ça fait une sacrée différence !
G : Celui-là va encore nous faire le coup du clinamen de derrière les
fagots et du poil du cul post-moderne capable de faire bifurquer
l’ensemble du sytème.
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